Blair gets a chance, as well as an audition

LOS ANGELES — The Spurs weren’t trying to rid themselves of DeJuan Blair before the trade deadline. They saw him as an asset even as they let the league know he was available.

They liked his salary, and they liked his personal growth. When other teams didn’t come up with an acceptable offer, the Spurs were fine with keeping him.

You never know, they told themselves. He could come in handy.

Sunday, he will. But this isn’t just about the Spurs having a plug-and-play piece to replace Tiago Splitter. This is about a moment for Blair to show other teams what they could have had in February, and what they can still get this summer when he becomes a free agent.

An audition?

“It is,” Blair said.

He was saying this Saturday morning, at a Santa Monica gym, bright eyed and cordial. He’s come a long way from the kid who didn’t always know how to act, whether with media, coaches or jewelry dealers.

His age was an excuse, and so was the way the Spurs treated him. They would lean on him in the regular season, then, as one on staffer put it Saturday, “we’d date someone else” in the playoffs.

Gregg Popovich had his reasons. Blair’s height is always going to be a problem, and there’s been some concern about his explosion. There seemed to be more of this when he was a rookie.

Still, given how he was treated, some pouting should have been expected. But that’s all it mostly was. Blair was never destructive in the locker room; he was only hurting his own career.

So what happened? Blair said this season, when things weren’t going his way, “I just accepted everything.”

Such as responsibility. In the wake of his jewelry embarrassment, he pointed at himself. “It happened in my rookie season when I was young and dumb, just coming into the league,” he told the Express-News this month. “I grew up.”

Maybe that’s why Popovich has said he’s “proud” of Blair, and Saturday Popovich said more:

“We haven’t played him as much as he’s wanted to play. … To his credit, DeJuan has been a true pro. He has worked out. He’s kept his weight down. He stayed in shape. He’s done a wonderful job in terms of knowing it’s his job to be available for his teammates.”

But Blair is doing more than helping the Spurs. He’s also helping his career. He needed to change — and his agent likely told him this in February — if he was going to find a place in the league.

Today is part of that. He will likely play more minutes in Game 4 than he has in any game this season. And for someone who has averaged nearly 16 points and 12 rebounds in the 24 career games in which he has played at least 30 minutes, the stage is there for him.

Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard only enhance the audition. Blair is not supposed to be able to play against this kind of height, after all.

But he did Friday. Then, he threw in all six of his shots, leaving Howard shaking his head afterward.

Back to the professionalism Popovich talked about: Blair has worked on that shot for two years.

He’s done all of this with an honest view of his business. Blair says the Spurs would have traded him if the deal had been right, and he also says “the better situation” for him next season would be with another team that would offer more minutes.